Can Clayton Kershaw take the dual Cy Young/MVP Award Hardware. Personally I am from the Pitchers get there own award, Position players should get the other award school of thought. However, this season the NL really hasn't had a standout candidate. Cases can be made for Andrew McCutchen, Giancarlo Stanton, and Jonathan LuCroy. For me the strongest case among the hitters is McCutchen. In addition to putting up good offensive numbers at the plate, he really carried the Pirates. When he was out of the lineup the Bucos struggled, upon his return, they made a run that got them into the playoffs. Curiously according to B-R Andrew McCutchen is an average fielder. Had he had a +1 or +2 dWAR season, his overall number would have been more comparable to Kershaws.
The Last time a Pitcher took both awards was relatively recently. In 2011 Justin Verlander won the award over Jacoby Ellsubry, Dustion Pedroia, Miguel Cabrera and others - Ben Zobrist won the WAR crown that year, but a significant portion of the number was defense based.
2013 Topps 3x Threads
Topps noted Verlander's 2011 double dip on the above Triple Threads card. I am not a big relic or serial collector but those two features combined with the magnitude of the player featured pushed this card onto the buy side at a recent card show. The "M" in MVP is to large and somewhat mars the overall look of the card, otherwise it is decent looking. The Card went for $8 which is probably the most I have ever paid for any relic, including Phillies.
Philly Show
Double duty for this post, this gives me a chance to return to Philly Show coverage. I originally began posting info on pickups from the show on October 1. If you want to see some vintage from taht day and an index to other related postings click here.
Sources and Links
Philly Show 2014 09 28
Philly Show 2014 09 28 Auto-Relic Summary
Baseball-ref
